A prepared stuffing mix saves you some shopping and prep time, but it needs dressing up to rise to the level of a festive holiday meal. This sweet-and-savory version is from the archives of Mrs. Cubbison’s.

Cranberry, Maple and Almond Stuffing

Makes 8 servings

1 cup fresh cranberries

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

6 cups corn bread stuffing mix

1/2 cup chopped almonds, toasted

1/4 cup chicken broth

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 21/2- to 3-quart casserole dish and set aside.

Place the cranberries, maple syrup and brown sugar in a medium-sized saucepan, and cook over low heat, stirring often, for 15 minutes, or just until the cranberries are soft and begin to pop. Set aside.

Place the butter or margarine in a large skillet, and melt over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and sauté for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Stir in the cranberry mixture, stuffing mix, almonds and broth, mixing well.

Transfer the stuffing to the prepared dish, cover and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until heated through. If a crisp top is desired, uncover the dish and bake for 10 additional minutes.

From “Mrs. Cubbison’s Best Stuffing Cookbook,” by Leo Pearlstein and Lisa Messinger; Square One Publishers, 2005.

Today’s pre-made stuffing mixes have a history linked to San Diego County’s farming community a century ago, and to a talented baker and businesswoman who was ahead of her time.

Sophie Cubbison, a San Diego County native who created and marketed prepared stuffing mixes, is currently being honored by The California Museum in Sacramento in an exhibit called “California’s Remarkable Women.” It highlights extraordinary women “who have strengthened, shaped and served the state of California.” The exhibit opened last month and continues through December 2012.

There are many variations of stuffing mixes today, but the concept of a “prepared” stuffing goes back to the 1930s and ’40s and Sophie Cubbison’s experiments with Melba toast.

Cubbison, born Sophia Huchting in 1890, grew up on a lima bean farm in the San Marcos area. She was one of 10 children of August Huchting, a German immigrant, and Conception Gonzales, who was from an old California family. As a teenager, the young Sophie baked and cooked meals for the ranch’s laborers — as many as 40 men during harvest time. Among her recipes was a German “black bread” that was a forerunner of whole-wheat bread; her grandmother handed it down to her father, who in turn taught Sophie and her mother how to make the bread.

In a biography of Cubbison on the company’s website,

mrscubbisons.com, she is quoted in describing how she served five meals a day to laborers from a horse-drawn “mobile kitchen”: “Breakfast was served at 5 a.m.; coffee break with a sweet snack at 9 a.m.; dinner at 12 o’clock; coffee break with sweet snack at 4 p.m., and supper at 8:30 p.m.”